"A haunted, haunting examination of mental illness and murder in a more or less ordinary American city...Mature and thoughtful...A Helter Skelter for our time, though without a hint of sensationalism--unsettling in the extreme but written with confidence and deep empathy" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas--one of America's poorest cities--John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already run down, and in their aftermath a consensus...